http://lauren.vortex.com/ en-us lauren@vortex.com 2009-07-03T11:00:32-08:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000592.html Greetings. A quickie from the "lunatics are running the asylum" file. I'm certainly willing to grant that Michael Jackson was a global entertainer of unique standing, and that many persons are interested in various aspects of his passing. So as... 592@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2009-07-03T11:00:32-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000591.html Greetings. Before you even think about rushing out to buy the new iPhone, you might want to read this interesting story about continuing negative reactions to the iPhone 3GS' battery life. Of course, all smartphones are power hungry, and we... 591@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2009-07-03T09:04:47-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000590.html Greetings. I had a nightmare last night. A real doozie, that joins the pantheon of the half-dozen or so worst dreams of my life. This wasn't a typical confused mashup of creepy sounds and plunging elevators, but rather a short... 590@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2009-07-02T14:25:29-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000589.html Greetings. I've just finished -- courtesy of CNN -- hearing the wife of recently deceased 50-year-old TV pitchman Bill Mays sobbing in anguish as she spoke to a 911 operator. (Speculation on cause of death in this case has now... 589@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2009-06-29T13:47:25-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000588.html Greetings. I just finished spending a considerable chunk of my remaining time span on this planet going around in circles -- literally -- with Windows 7 RC. I was attempting to install Microsoft's release candidate on a fairly conventional dual... 588@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2009-06-28T18:29:57-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000587.html Greetings. As the world watches the unfolding of dramatic human events in the aftermath of disputed Iranian elections, it's impossible to ignore the spectacle of global news organizations reduced to being, in many respects, mere conduits for dramatic and timely... 587@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2009-06-21T18:38:56-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000586.html Greetings. About two weeks ago, I reported a YouTube privacy-related bug directly to YouTube/Google. It was promptly repaired (thanks YouTube team!), but in the wake of this event I suspect that many YouTube users may not fully understand the privacy... 586@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2009-06-19T19:11:46-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000585.html Greetings. Today is analog television cutoff day in the U.S., and millions of viewers will be left with no television -- or degraded quality signals -- as a result, often through no direct fault of their own (economic circumstances, logistical... 585@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2009-06-12T11:55:35-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000584.html Greetings. The Washington Post is reporting that in the wake of the horrific attack and murder at the Washington D.C. Holocaust Memorial Museum earlier this week, Web sites around the Net have been attempting to "rewrite history" by removing materials... 584@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2009-06-12T09:14:14-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000583.html Greetings. Early this week I had to deal with jury duty here in L.A. -- after being bounced around preliminarily between three widely distant courts for months. As you may know, I am, uh, not a fan of the jury... 583@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2009-06-11T15:31:24-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000582.html Greetings. Just a little fun today. Many, many years ago, I stumbled onto a single-frame special effects bug in the classic 1960 film The Time Machine. Please don't ask how I happened to be inspecting the film frame-by-frame back then.... 582@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2009-06-09T21:42:42-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000581.html Greetings. I wasn't planning an entry this evening, but circumstances demand a quickie (long day, including L.A. jury duty -- ya' know what happens when I open my mouth in front of a judge given how I feel about the... 581@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2009-06-08T22:19:13-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000580.html Greetings. There's no escaping the buzz -- and the newly launched, very expensive advertising campaign -- relating to Microsoft's new Bing search engine (which they're calling a "decision engine"). The merits and limitations of the Bing product aside, the ad... 580@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2009-06-07T17:19:34-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000579.html Greetings. It took all of five seconds playing with Google's new Smart Navigation features in Street View for me to realize why it seemed so instantly familiar. Just announced today, Smart Navigation deals with the "click 'til your finger goes... 579@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2009-06-04T16:27:30-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000578.html Greetings. Less than a week ago at a conference, Alan Davidson of Google reportedly noted that Internet policy issues have reached something of an "Empire Strikes Back" moment, where all manner of serious pushback from the traditional lords of telecom... 578@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2009-06-03T17:59:40-08:00